The infamous one drop rule—created by white racists to rationalize slavery—holds that a person with even the slightest trace of sub-Saharan ancestry cannot be considered white. Yet, the skin color of many people dubbed “black” is much lighter than that of some so-called “white” people who hail from India, Morocco, and Mexico.

Let’s do away with the designation black altogether. Though common during the heyday of the Black Power movement, it’s no longer fashionable.

We also need to get rid of the word Negro, which translates from Spanish and Portuguese into English as black.

The expression colored is grossly misleading and the amorphous people of color is far too hoity-toity. No person is absolutely black or white—or any other color, for that matter.

My wife’s smooth, beautiful epidermis has the exact look of coffee with just the perfect amount of cream added. Except, of course, when we vacation in Cancun and she temporarily turns the tone of sweet and delicious milk chocolate.

I don’t tan well, but I’m definitely not white, even in private places that never get exposed to the sun.

The phrase African-American may be politically correct right now, but I refuse to apply that awful appellation to people who’ve never ventured from their birthplace in Los Angeles farther than San Diego or San Francisco, and who have no physical or familial ties with Africa.

That hyphenated designation should be reserved exclusively for persons who have one parent who was actually born in Africa and whose other parent was born in the United States—regardless of ethnicity. Or, for those few individuals who maintain dual citizenship.

Which brings us to the N word. When John Drake’s daughter (for the past thirty-three plus years, my wife JJ) came home from elementary school after being called out of her name with the ugly epithet, Mr. Drake wisely and succinctly explained that “N-----s come in all colors.” Subject closed. Drake was a man of few, carefully chosen words.

Just as people should not be categorized by skin color, they should never be classified by race.

The concept of race is rejected by the vast majority of anthropologists, physicians, members of the Baha’i faith, and countless other enlightened individuals, who know for an indisputable fact that there is only one race—the human race, Homo sapiens.

The common perception that there are numerous races is a faulty social construct—junk science based on trivial, superficial characteristics, and not backed by any genetic evidence or DNA differences.

Simply stated, the concept of race completely lacks scientific foundation.

Categorizing human beings into multiple “races” is a fiction created in 18th century Europe to dominate and exploit people who happened to look a little bit different.

The term Caucasian was coined by German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, and was based on the perceived skull structure of people from the Caucasus mountains region—a long way from where ancestors of Americans who consider themselves to be “Caucasians” lived.

Other than the United States, the only nation that ever lumped people into rigid racial categories was Nazi Germany.

For Census 2000 the Office of Management and Budget required the U.S. population to be categorized into two ethnic groups and five categories of “race.” Since 1900, fully twenty-six different terms have been used on U.S. census forms to identify so-called races. If race is an exact science, how did the Irish, Italian, Jewish, Hindu, and Mexican races all turn “white” over the years?

Naomi Zack, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon, wrote, “Race as a biological concept comes from the delusion that there are distinct breeds of human beings, when there aren’t. To some extent, public policy has to be based on reality and there is no reality here. The concept of race is like a shared, collective hallucination.”

President Barack Obama often stated during the presidential campaign that we are one people, one nation, and one America. There is no better time than the present for him to also publicly proclaim that we are but one race.

I would like President Obama to prepare and sign an Executive Order decreeing the category of “race” to be eliminated on all government forms and documents—and, especially, on the Federal Census to be taken in the year 2010.

Such an Executive Order will go a long way toward restoring America’s image in the eyes of the rest of the world, especially in Latino countries whose culture has been one of intermarriage and mestizaje (ethnic mixing)—countries such as Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba, where the population is a rich blend of indigenous, European, African, and Asian peoples.